Subject: RE: When do you replace your bike 3 years is nothing. I replaced my my 1992 Bianchi last year, and mrs gearboy's 1985 Shogun this year. My mtn bike is about 11 years old, and if I rode trails more often, I would justify an upgrade to have disc brakes. If the bike fits, and it works for you, no need to replace it. If you want to justify it for upgraded frames or components, go for it. But realistically I don't think there is some new technology that has come out in the last year or two that completely blows away the "old" system, the way that index shifting replaced friction, or integrated shifters on road bikes replaced downtube shifters, or the advent of disc brakes on mtn bikes, etc. And people who replace bikes every couple of years are (sometimes ) putting out on the market some really nice bikes for people getting into cycling (my one friend got a used Giant OCR with 105 components for around $400 - needed some wheel truing and a smaller seat post, but he couldn't touch a new bike for that price. And being a cheap b*stard, he would have kept struggling on road rides with his 12 year old mountain bike. ) So I'm not putting down the practice, just saying you don't need to feel that a 3 year old bike is ancient history. |